Editorial Assignment

I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them. -- The Importance of Being Earnest BACKGROUND: Throughout his famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde uses wordplay persuasively to make serious things seem trivial and vice versa. During our in-class activity, you practiced the same skill: using serious critical thinking and observation to describe and analyze a seemingly mundane object. In this essay assignment, you will continue to use this type of observation, description, and analysis. In this case, however, you will build on these powers of observation by asking So, what? and introducing persuasion into your writing. ASSIGNMENT: Newspapers like The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and even The DePaulia frequently feature editorials on a wide range of topics. One function that editorials serve is a call to action or attention: they are a platform for the author to convince his readers to pay attention (or pay more nuanced attention) to an existing issue/situation or to change their actions in some way. Good editorials also include the crucial skills weve already discussed, observation and analysis. They must provide some description in order to hook their reader, but also closely analyze the situation in order to persuade the reader. Your task for this assignment is to write an editorial that could be featured in The DePaulia. WHERE TO BEGIN? In class, we will analyze recent editorials in The DePaulia to answer the following questions: Who is the audience for this assignment? How long are typical editorials in The DePaulia? How do editorials mix description with analysis and argument? How do editorials use a thesis? What are appropriate topics for an editorial? FORMATTING: Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins, and be sure to include a heading with your name and the date. Please proofread your paper for spelling and grammar. Rough drafts are due next Monday at the beginning of class. You complete an in class writing workshop, so be sure to bring a hard copy of your completed draft. Your final draft will be due in the D2L dropbox on Wednesday at midnight.

Model Assignment & Invention Activity Rationale The purpose of the invention activity is to allow students to practice close observation and analysis in an unorthodox and (hopefully!) entertaining manner. The activity requires a bit of creativity, since the students must seriously think about a seemingly unimportant object. However, the abilities utilized in the invention activity quickly take a practical turn in the assignment. This writing assignment is intended to

take place sometime in the middle or end of the quarter. Students should be accustomed to the idea of the rhetorical situation so they will be able to perform an in-class genre analysis before beginning the paper. The assignment allows them to exercise the close observation and analysis they develop in the in-class activity and transfer those skills to a more real-life genre.